The Darkhorses, the winner of the 2008 U.S. Amateur Team East, best promotional idea/gimmick award.

291 teams entered this year's U.S. Amateur Team East (Parsipanny, NJ, Feb.16-18), defeating the previous record of 286. When asked why he thought there was such a large turnout, organizer Steve Doyle told CLO, " Once a team starts, it tends to continue."

There are nine GMs playing, three of them on one team, "GGGg." Steve Doyle says that despite a misconception to the contrary, there is no rule against "stacked" teams. There was a rule from 1994-1998 that such teams could not enter the U.S. Amateur team playoffs even if they won, but that was overturned when Karpov formed a stacked team in 1998.

The fun in Parsippany peaks just before Sunday night's evening round, when many teams show up in costumes, and the best gimmick and best name awards are judged by audience enthusiasm. This year, the Best gimmick award went to the "DarkHorses" photographed above. The Darkhorses even performed a rap onstage. The best name award went to the sad but sharp, "No Longer Searching for Bobby Fischer." Elizabeth Vicary found a few minutes off from coaching her students at I.S. 318 to send us the following photo gallery:

Stephen Fanning from the 3 GM team, officially named "GGGg." Besides Stephen, the team consists of Zviad Izoria, Eugene Perelshteyn and Roman Dzindzichashvili.

Medina Parilla of "McCain, No Country for Old Men" which also includes Yury Lapshun, Aleksander Pelekhaty and Fritz Gaspard.

Joel Benjamin, Abby Marshall, John MacArthur and Deborah Quinn of "3:10 to Yermo"

The Four Knights break out the costumes on Sunday night

GMs Eugene Perelshteyn and Zviad Izoria

Three other U.S. Amateur Team tournaments are underway: West, Los Angeles,CA, Feb.16-18 , North, Feb 16-17, Milwaukee and South, Feb.15-17 in Orlando, FL. Check in during
the next couple days for final results of all the events and blogging
from the East by Abby Marshall. Organizer Harvey Lerman already has results in from the U.S. Amateur South. More details to follow.
"The Foreclosure Doctors LLC 305.300.2055" (Bruci Lopez, Jeffrey
Haskel, Javier Gonzales, and Gilberto Luna[Captain]) came from behind
to beat "Flaming Flamingos" (Corey Acor, Eric Rodriguez, Jeffrey De
Jesus, and Michael Corallo) and became USATS Champions. Their 4 1/2
score put them alone in 1st place, and "Flamingos" 2nd on tiebreaks
with the Ludwig team, which finished 3rd. The dominance of the top two
teams was apparent as "Falmingos" won all the board prizes but #1,
which went to Lopez.